Big Commerce API PHP Wrapper
Big Commerce is a hosted e-commerce platform. You are given FTP credentials to access the few static files you are allowed to manipulate... and you have an API. For various reasons, I had to interact with the Big Commerce API and since there was a serious lack of code (and decent documentation), I figured I'd put together my own little wrapper. Should be pretty self-explanatory if you're here. Needless to say, this code comes as-is with no support from me whatsoever.
Grey Hat Programming on Big Commerce
One of my clients has a website constituting of two platforms: WordPress and Big Commerce. I was mandated to, among other things, create a symbiosis between the two platforms so that users didn't have to register twice. The only problem with that is being a commercial platform, Big Commerce doesn't want you messing around in their proprietary database - their API really is only for read stuff, you never write anywhere. Understandable... but my client still wants user synchronicity, and to be honest I don't think he's exaggerating.
So... how do we remotely create users on a platform that doesn't let you create users with their API? After a bit of looking around for solution, I stumbled upon my client's store registration form (which is hosted, like everything related to Big Commerce, on a server you don't control). Different domains, different servers, no API methods... but I have a form. Have you ever heard of XSS? In the world of developers, it's a real annoyance. Essentially, if you fail to secure your forms properly, anyone can grab your form, put it somewhere else on the internet and submit bogus data (because the form still sends to you, get it?). Anyway, it's usually really only a security concern, but for this particular project, it became a feature.
Dynamic DNS Updater: dynDNS.Namecheap
I found out earlier this week that my favourite registrar, Namecheap, has a nifty little tool you can use to dynamically update the Namecheap-hosted domain A records. There's very little documentation available, despite the awesomeness and usefulness of such a tool, Namecheap doesn't really advertise it. The only piece of information related specifically to the dynamic DNS update manually is buried in Namecheap's knowledge base under "How to use the browser to dynamically update host's IP" and, after some Googling, a 5 years old non-exhaustive list of returned XML values on some obscure forum.
In order to ensure this works, however, there are a few dependencies:
- You need to have a domain registered with Namecheap;
- That domain needs to use Namecheap's nameservers (https://manage.www.namecheap.com/myaccount/modsingle.asp?domain=domain&type=backtous&rkey=NC);
- You must've enabled "Dynamic DNS" in your domain settings (https://manage.www.namecheap.com/myaccount/modsingle.asp?domain=domain&type=ddns&rkey=NC)
- This script is CLI-oriented, meaning it's meant to be executed via the command line. Regardless of your OS, you will need:
- php5-cli php5-curl;
- A working Internet connection;
That being said, it's relatively simple to understand. Most of the job is done server-side, so all you really need to do is hit a specific URL and let Namecheap do the rest:
https://dynamicdns.park-your-domain.com/update?host=&domain=&password=
Once you know that URL, it's pretty easy to implement something around it. Here's my little facilitator built in PHP:
Twitter Direct Messages Bulk Deleter
If you're a Twitter user and a organisation freak, you're certainly aware that Twitter doesn't give you the ability to bulk-delete direct messages. Back in the days, Damon Cortesi had built a nifty bookmarklet that allowed you to stick it to the man. Problem is, that bookmarklet is now deprecated, due to Twitter's change of layout - most of the stuff just doesn't work the way it used to, so the infamous DM Whacker was laid to rest.
Until I got really fucking tired of all the direct messages. Here's a reboot of Damon Cortesi's DM Whacker: DMDelete-v2.0. It's fast, uses Twitter-specific resources (such as their jQuery and dialogs), and is merciless. Give it a try, all you have to do is drag the link blow to your bookmark toolbar (or wherever you want really), go to your Twitter inbox and click it!
This is beta software! Feel free to relay any feedback you might have after using - it's rather challenging to thoroughly test this piece of code on my own, so there may be random hiccups.
Thoughts on Diaspora
Diaspora, the open-source Facebook clone, was publicly released yesterday, September 15th. All technical stuff aside, it's interesting to see their strategy. They're a very small group of people, releasing a clone of something that literally revolutionized the Internet. Facebook is a weird target to go after, all things considered. The only motive anyone has of hating them all started from that whole privacy fiasco a few months ago. It all went down from there, to numerous privacy redrafting to compromising IM conversation Zuckerberg had years ago. Facebook had a decently good rep before that. Diaspora aims to be another Facebook, without the whole "we own your data and we can sell it to whoever we want" philosophy. Question is will they succeed? Aside from privacy-related mistakes (or rather bad moves), Facebook is (or should be) very respected in the open-source community. These guys have collaborated to several open-source projects such as Apache (with Cassandra, Hive and Hadoop) and PHP (with HipHop, phpEmbed, phpsh, XHP & XHProf), it'll be hard to eclipse that much contribution.
Hacking WordPress: Introduction to custom plugins and advanced templating
For those of you who don't know (which may very well be all of you right now), I will be presenting a talk at WordCamp Montreal July 12th. The title of the presentation, if you haven't guessed, is "Hacking WordPress: Introduction to custom plugins and advanced templating". I'll explain how you can use your own plugins and functions to make your WordPress site sing. In other words, it will basically be a relatively improvised primer on the following things:
- Introduction to creating WordPress plugins
- Managing your sidebars and widgets
- Using WordPress' Codex and API documentation
- Hacking up your templates to use all the power provided by WordPress
If you're not registered yet, you have until July 9th to do so on EventBrite. For more information regarding WordPress Montreal 2009, check out the official site, mailing list, blog, Facebook group and Twitter account or see what's going on by looking up the #wcmtl tag.
